News from the Homefront

Sorry for being so lackadaisical on posting lately! I promise I will get better. So today will just be a quick update on the ZamFam5 since I have neglected all of my friends and family this semester (especially lately).

Mr. Wonderful wants to be called Zorro on this blog, to which I have firmly put my foot down. No way! I might go with El Guapo or El Gordo, but that is the extent of my Spanish. The second one, didn't go over too well . . .

Ladies who have had babies, do you remember when you're in your ninth month and people who see you infrequently say things like, "Oh, you're still around," or "When IS that baby going to be born," like you somehow needed to be reminded that you were as big as a cow who just swallowed a whale. I always wanted to shout, "Do you think I am not counting the SECONDS until my due date, and if I am not at least a week early, I might kill someone, anyone and you look just as good as anyone?!" OK, so maybe that was just me . . .I HATED being pregnant. Well, in the same vein, I am finishing up my first year of grad school and tons of people say, "So is this your last semester?" NO! I am not graduating until 2010 which sounds like a thousand years from now. Are you happy?! Actually, though, if I had to choose between ever being pregnant again or staying in grad school for the rest of my life, I would so pick grad school.

So, yes, I am finishing up my first full year of grad school. The end of this semester has been a bit stressful because I have this little disorder called procrastination. I was doomed from birth, though, so it's not my fault. I was born a week late which just happens to be during National Procrastination Week. Here's a glimpse into this terrible, terrible disease: We had eight assignments for one class that were doled out throughout the semester, but not due until April 28. Yah, just guess when I started working on them? Wow, that was one crazy weekend! I did get a 100% on all of them, just so you know. I work best under a deadline, yah, that's it.

Another "for instance," I had to shadow a reference librarian and then write up a report. I did the job shadow during the last week of March. The report is due May 5. Well, I guess I've got about three days to get that done. . . And don't you know what an exciting report it will be -- the life of a librarian -- does it get any more riveting than that? You should have read the other paper I wrote this semester (the day before it was due!). It was called From Mexico to M-----y - Organizational Structures in Limited Spaces: A Brief Study of La Rosita Carneceria and M-----y Public Library. I really do try to amuse at least myself in these assignments. I described the boulevard of soda and the dryer lint and twigs in a baggie (horehound spice?!) that was for sale at the local Mexican grocery store. I haven't gotten a grade on that one yet. Maybe the prof was not as amused as I was. (I can send out copies if anyone suffers from insomnia.) For my final project, I am cataloging my GI Joe collection. Back when I was spending my 75 cents per week allowance on them, who knew to what heights they would take me!

So onto Bean. Last night we went to the off-Broadway production of Bugz, starring Bean as a Firefly! OK, so maybe it was just the local first grade production of Bugz, and Bean was one of the firefly dancers, but she was the cutest little firefly there. I was just glad she wasn't a ladybug -- eek. It was kind of creepy. The ladybugs did this hip sashaying "I'm a lady" dance that made me suck my teeth. If I were in her first grade class, I would have wanted to be an army ant because they got to wear camo. But the firefly dance was perfect for Bean since she is the light of my life.

Bear is her crazy little self. Two days ago she colored herself blue with marker -- literally solid blue on one hand almost to the elbow. Then, when she cried because I made her throw the marker away (it was chewed beyond repair), her tears and blue arm combined to color her face a corpse-like shade. She also cannot pronounce the sounds that are made toward the back of her mouth, so "c" and "g" are usually "t" or "d". She was trying to say "glue" yesterday and kept saying "da-loo." This was inordinately funny to me. Her current favorite toy is a beanie baby beaver that my dad brought her from Germany. She doesn't go anywhere without her "beav-a."

Bug is obsessed with escaping from the asylum. He has tried to push the screen out of the front window and if the storm door does not close quickly enough, he's faster than the cat, skedaddling out that door, shimmying down the front steps and on down the driveway. That's as far as he's ever gotten, but the busy road or the mucky, murky creek are likely destinations. He has even skooched the large Lincoln Log tin (did you know they were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son?) all the way to the front door and climbed up on it to try to engineer some sort of escape. If he could just figure out how that handle works, we'd really be in trouble. His vast vocabulary consists mostly of "Lerda, Lerda," which is what he calls our dog Luna. Poor, long-suffering soul that she is, she has been Yu-Ya with Bean and Woo-Da with Bear and a few unmentionable words from Mr. Wonderful -- especially after Tuesday night when she dragged her 10 year old bones on an overnight tour of the neighborhood and came home the next morning reeking of roadkill and creek muck. Yum!

So that's the news from the homefront. Hope you and yours are well. If I haven't heard from you in while, drop me a line. I might even respond after May 5!